Powerful Help For The Helpless

Could you find a better place for one to be when injured severely than in a fully equipped and well-staffed hospital? Consider then what the psalmist says in Psalm 121 :1, 2.

There we read, I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.'

Imagine that! The almighty God, He Who made this vast creation, this large earth upon which we live, the starry hosts, these bodies millions of miles away from us, and the spiritual realm we also call heaven, is our help. What power! What wisdom! Therefore, what help there is then for us in all our sins and miseries!

And when the psalmist speaks of looking to the hills, he calls our attention to the fact that we have almighty, certain help for all our spiritual as well as physical needs, for all the needs of our souls as well as of our bodies. For these hills are Mt. Moriah on which God's house was built by Solomon, and Mt. Zion where God's throne stood, and where the kings from David onward reigned as types of Christ.

The significance of it all is that we can look for help to Christ, Who now is at God's right hand with power over every creature in heaven and on earth, and who died for our sins on the altar of the cross, which was pictured in that temple on Mt. Moriah. Thus to God through Christ we may go with all our guilt, and all the miseries upon us because of our guilt in Adam. We have protection from all our enemies, and have bodies promised us that will be glorious and free from sin. About what then do we have to worry? We are in the hands of a powerful Savior Who is driven by a love that moved Him to die for our sins and to bring us to that glory.

Look up then to those hills no matter what your problem is, and let this daily be your song:

Unto the hills around do I lift up My longing eyes; O whence for me Shall my salvation come, From whence arise? From God the Lord Doth come my certainaidFrom God the Lord Who heaven and earth hath made.

****Quote for Reflection:“We ought to be more attentive to this warning to reprove the unfruitful works of darkness, by showing to the utmost of our power that it displeases us and by taking steps to stop it, if it lies in our power to do so. If every man employed himself in this fashion, we should surely see another kind of integrity in the world. What is the reason why God’s name is so much blasphemed? It is because blasphemies are cloaked and every man would rather defile himself with other men’s wickedness than acquire any disfavor [for reproving them]. The case is similar with drunkenness, lechery, robbery, and all extortions and wanton deeds…If we had the zeal commanded us here by St. Paul, surely we should be much more courageous and staunch in rebuking such as do amiss…If not, we also show ourselves to have no love nor kindness…[because] men’s souls are going to perdition and we do not remedy it [by reproving them] even though God…has placed us in that office of saving that which is on the way to being lost and damned” (John Calvin, Sermons on Ephesians, p. 523).